Arlis
Masculine
Arlis is given to both — 1,972 boys and 797 girls since 1880. See Arlis as a girl nameSee other names given to both
Arlis is a short American name recorded for boys and girls alike, and it sits one letter away from an older spelling and one syllable away from a city in Provence that was, for a while, the capital of more or less everything.
How old is the name Arlis?
Arlis first appears in US birth records in 1906 — 119 years ago. The typical Arlis alive today was born around 1942, making them about 83 years old. About 900 people named Arlis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
When was the name Arlis most popular?
Arlis peaked in 1931, reaching #939 nationally. Today it ranks #4396, 3,457 places below that high. See the whole 1931 chart.
Lists built from the same records:
Where it comes from
Origin, sound and short forms
Our story of Arlis
Arles sits on the Rhône in southern France and it has been important more times than most cities manage. The Romans made it a colony for veterans and then, for a period, effectively the administrative capital of the western empire: it has an amphitheater that still holds events and an underground forum nobody is quite done excavating. Later it gave its name to a whole kingdom, the Kingdom of Arles, which covered Provence and Burgundy and much of what is now western Switzerland and which almost no one outside a history seminar has heard of. Later still, Van Gogh went there for the light and produced a painting a day. Arlis is not named for it. But it is a good reminder that a place can be the center of the world twice and end up as a pleasant town with a train station.
Meaningnot established
Not established
No origin has been documented. The name may come from an English surname, may be a build on a free front syllable, and may have been arrived at more than once. The record holds both this spelling and the doubled one and explains neither.
Pronouncing Arlis
AR-liss
Two syllables with the stress in front. One s or two makes no audible difference at all.
Nicknames for Arlis
Limited
What the data says
146 years of official birth records
The long climb, and where it stands now
The same years in position rather than babies
- First recorded
- 1906
- Most boys named
- 193243 — the highest on record
- Peak rank
- #939reached in 1931
- Change vs 2023
- +43.8%23 in 2025, from 16
Rank is a position, a count is a headcount, and they move independently — a name can hold its rank while the number of babies behind it falls. Source: U.S. Social Security Administration.
Arlis in other languages
Strongest US states over the last decade: Texas.
Arliss among us
people named Arlis are estimated to be alive in the US today
About 1 boy in 74,264 born in 2025 was named Arlis
Estimated from SSA birth records and published actuarial life tables. Method
Is it right for you
What happens to a name after it peaks
The Larue test
Every popular name lives one long story — a climb, a peak, a slow settling back. Arlis's later chapters haven't been written yet, so we borrowed them: Larue climbed just as high around 1912, and its whole arc is on record. Line the two peaks up, and Larue's path sketches the road Arlis is walking now.
Arlis sits in the calm middle of the cycle — neither chasing a wave nor sliding off one. Middle-of-the-cycle names age slowly and predictably.
A scored estimate from 146 years of naming cycles — not a prophecy. Great names outlive statistics. How this is scored
Arlis beside its neighbors
The names ranked closest to Arlis in 2025, in babies rather than position — the bars are to scale.
US boys given each name in 2025.
The trade-off
- It is read correctly at first sight and never needs spelling out.
- It is recorded for boys and for girls, so it leaves a question open rather than closing it.
- Arlie comes off it as a short form without any work.
- The doubled spelling is also in use, so the name will be written both ways by other people for life.
- This spelling goes mostly to boys but is recorded for girls too, and forms will occasionally guess wrong.
- No origin is documented, so the meaning question has nothing settled to answer with.
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Arlis
Masculine · #4396 in the U.S.
Frequently asked
- How many Arliss are there in the world?
- No country counts the world's names, so there is no worldwide figure — anyone quoting one is estimating. About 900 people named Arlis are estimated to be alive in the US today.
- How popular is the name Arlis in 2025?
- Arlis ranks #4396 among US boy names in 2025, with 23 babies given the name.
- How rare is the name Arlis?
- About 1 in every 74,264 US boys born in 2025 was named Arlis — 23 in all.
- Will my child share the name Arlis with classmates?
- Arlis will almost certainly be the only one in school.
Ranked beside Arlis
Names sitting at a similar level of popularity right now.
Odell#4396 · Corwin#4396 · Tennyson#4396 · Marques#4396 · Manu#4396 · Omid#4396 · Zackariah#4396 · Burton#4396
Looking for what else is popular rather than what resembles Arlis? See the current top 100.
Choosing between Arlis and another name?
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US figures from the Social Security Administration. 1880–2025. Data & methodology
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